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The purpose of this paper is to study the usability dimensions that end‐users utilise when they assess the usability of built environments in Finland.

This study is carried out by utilising directed content analysis. A directed content analysis starts by creating (theoretical) pre‐understanding of possible categories and then goes on to test this pre‐understanding with empirical evidence.

The findings suggest that the users use 12 different dimensions when they assess the usability of built environments.

Understanding the usability dimensions end‐users use in assessing built environments makes it possible to make improvements in existing environments and in creating new environments that suit end‐user needs better.

Even though discussion about usability dimensions and user experiences is vast, the existing discussion about usability dimensions in built environments is limited and this paper adds understanding of four “new” dimensions that have not been discussed previously in this particular context.

The purpose of this paper is to study how contact centre employees rationalize the perceived problems of an open plan contact centre environment.

The paper applies a framework of four different orientations towards the working environment: the object orientation, system orientation, people orientation and territory orientation. Interviews in three contact centre environments with 28 interviewees were carried out, in order to test whether the framework could be used to analyse the ways the contact centre employees rationalize their working environment. The data were analysed with a qualitative content analysis.

It was possible to find four ways to rationalize the working environment from the speech of the contact centre employees: object‐oriented, system‐oriented, people‐oriented and territory‐oriented rationalization. Persons with the same dominant way of rationalization had internally coherent ways of constructing the reality of their workplace and a common way to justify the existing spatial solutions.

This research is limited to the insights of 28 contact centre workers. Their experiences of their working environment were studied without an attempt to objectively assess whether the problems they named were real or not. The results are not generalizable in the traditional statistical sense.

The research on workplace‐related issues in a contact centre context is limited. Contact centre work is demanding but the physical working environment can be used to minimize the negative consequences of these demands. Thus, it is important to raise understanding of the workplace‐related issues in a contact centre context.

In long‐term business relationships the customer experience is affected by how the customer perceives the quality of the customer relationship. The purpose of this paper is to understand the customer relationship quality construct in landlord‐tenant relationships in a business‐to‐business environment.

The theoretical framework is adapted from relationship marketing literature and this framework is then applied in case study settings to five customer companies in a landlord and tenant relationship. The paper introduces a framework of 13 relationship quality attributes and applies these to the case companies.

The results suggest that some of the suggested relationship quality attributes have an importance in a landlord and tenant relationship while some suggested attributes have less value.

The case studies were conducted in companies that occupy office premises in multi‐user buildings.

This paper introduces theoretical understanding from relationship marketing literature into the real estate business and adds practical understanding of customer relationship management into the rental business.

The purpose of this paper is to take a look at the phenomena of office noise and to try and outline the worker perceptions of noise in a multi-dimensional and holistic manner. This is done in a case study setting in contact center environment.

The research was carried out in three phases. First, a review of existing research was carried out. Second, 28 interviews were carried out to outline the dimensions of office noise. Third, a set of 20 further interviews were carried out to study the dimensions of noise that appeared from the first phase of the research.

The literature review introduces seven streams of office noise research. None of these looks at the office noise as a holistic and multi-dimensional experience of office workers. The results from the interviews suggest that office workers see the office noise to have negative, neutral and positive aspects. In call center context, the most important aspect of noise includes: psychological and physiological symptoms, dynamism, social setting, knowledge transfer, socialization and sound masking.

The data are limited to one specific kind of work setting, namely, contact center environment. Thus, the findings may not be generalized to cover other types of work. Even though the sample size of 48 interviewees is quite big for a qualitative research setting, the basic problem of the research orientation is still present. The results are intended to give an in-depth insight on dimensionality of office noise in the complex interrelated open-plan office system.

Existing research on office noises and acoustics tends to see the office noises just as a negative phenomenon. This leads to research settings that neglect the positive aspects of the noise. Further, this leads to somewhat distorted discussion and practical recommendations.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the risk perceptions of persons responsible for business relocation.

The empirical material consists of interviews in companies that have considered relocation seriously or have recently relocated. The empirical material is augmented by a literature review.

The risk perceptions can be divided into five categories. These are: financial risks, functional risks, corporate culture risk, interest group risk and future risk.

When a company relocates, the stress and anxiety of the persons responsible for the process should be considered. Also, when doing relocation‐related business, reducing relocation risks should be considered when planning the business model and marketing.

This paper combines relocation literature in a multi‐disciplinary manner and adds empirical understanding of the phenomena in question.

The aim of this paper is to study the opportunities and challenges of the government workplace concepting process. Several Finnish government administrations have created nationwide workplace concepts for their network of agencies. These concepts give guidelines for designing workplaces for modern knowledge workers as well as service channels for the customers.

This paper discusses five Finnish government workplace concepts that include guidelines and recommendations for workplace design. The five workplace concept manuals were studied using content analysis. Additionally, seven interviews were conducted with participants involved in the concepting process.

The opportunities and challenges of the governmental workplace concepting process were studied using a six-step process framework. Each step has its own unique opportunities and challenges, which affect the outcome and the progress in implementing the concepts. Studying the opportunities and challenges helps to improve the concepting process and thus improve the potential for effectively implementing the concepts.

Creating office concepts in the public sector is at an immature phase both in Finland and in other countries. This paper helps take steps towards creating public offices that are cost efficient and at the same time support modern work activities. This allows governmental actors to rationalise and make the best possible use of their extensive stock of real estate.

Public offices have been little studied and office work in this context is also a less studied topic. The findings of this paper offer a novel way to look at government office concepts.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how balanced scorecard approach may be utilized in implementing organizational or facilities management strategies in workplace networks. The term workplace network refers to organizational actors involved in using and maintaining physical working environments. These actors include, among others, the tenant organizations and different service providers.

One large Finnish organization with an existing facilities management strategy was used as a case organization. The data were gathered through interviews and a workshop.

The paper illustrates how the balanced scorecard can be used in the workplace network. An exemplary goal is derived to the level of numeric measure.

The balanced scorecard has been widely applied in putting the general business strategies in action. Some facilities management‐related solutions are also available. Applications including the entire workplace network are more rare and the originality of this approach comes from this perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to assess service quality of outsourced facility maintenance services (FMS) from end‐user perspective. For this purpose, a two‐dimensional model for service quality in a FMS context is presented.

This paper is based on interviews in case study organizations.

The findings suggest that FMS quality may be divided into two industry‐specific dimensions – service recovery quality (response to a service failure) and observed maintenance quality (technical outcome). It seems that the main quality problems are linked to service recovery quality. These problems are caused by personalities of service personnel and lack of communication between end‐users and the service provider.

For FMS providers and building owners it is important to understand the nature of end‐user perceived FMS quality formation. This makes it possible to assess the service provision and to improve the performance of FMS if necessary. If the service recovery processes and observed maintenance quality are not understood well, the improvements may be directed to the wrong processes.

The quality of outsourced FMS is important for employers, employees, building owners and FMS providers. Still, there is very little research on end‐user perceived FMS quality. This paper creates a basis for further research on this important topic.

This paper aims to present a methodology for assessing end‐user experiences of workplace environments and proposes an “experience sheet” as a way to illustrate the findings.

In the theoretical part, the article combines understanding from post‐occupancy evaluations in the facilities management field with service process audits in the hospitability sector. This methodology is then tested in a case environment.

The findings suggest that the methodology and the experience sheet provide a usable and interesting way of assessing user experience in the workplace environment.

This article offers an illustrative way to understand user experience in workplace environments, and through that helps in improving existing working environments and in creating new ones.

This article combines theoretical understanding in a cross‐disciplinary manner in a novel way, and through that introduces a usable method for workplace improvement for practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how the youngest generation at work perceives problems that are linked to open‐plan offices. They are the future users of the work environments and thus it is important to understand how they perceive different office solutions. The paper looks at one specific type of job and one group of office employees: generation Y – those born in the 1980s and early 1990s – working in a contact centre environment.

The research was carried out as a case study. In total, 20 thematic interviews were conducted among the representatives of generation Y from three different sites of one big Finnish telecommunications company. The themes of the interviews were outlined by a thorough literature review concerning problems that are often linked to open office solutions.

The findings suggest that in this case, the generation Y employees in fact liked their open‐plan office. They acknowledged most of the issues or “problems” that the literature suggests, but they did not necessarily see these purely in a negative way. Instead, they often perceived these issues as fair trade‐offs for some greater good. This result supports the idea that open‐plan offices are complex and interrelated systems where all parts affect the others.

The main limitation of this research is the small sample size. The results cannot be generalized to all young office employees; rather, they are intended to give a first in‐depth insight into the experiences of one specific group of users in the complex interrelated open‐plan office system.

The paper's findings add to the understanding about how generation Y perceives their work environment. The research also highlights a limitation in earlier open‐plan offices and suggests that future research needs to take a broader perspective on this complex system.